Monday, July 11, 2005

Israeli Ministry Hands Out Book Praising Al Aksa Martyrs

A first aid course given by the Education Ministry to Druze and Arab teachers shouldn't necessarily be in the headlines. Unless, of course, the text for the course is dedicated to Arab terrorists.

Handing out a book in a course on first aid ordinarily should not make the news, even in country like Israel, where virtually every action by the government is intensely scrutinized by the media, foreign and domestic.

So in a country that’s certainly not lacking spicy news items for journalists, an ordinary course on first aid sponsored by a government ministry can only reach the headlines when something so incredulous happens, it literally has the effect of knocking the reader off his chair.

That’s precisely the effect we expect this article to have on our readers from this shocking, but true report:

In a first aid course sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Education, students were handed out a book that was “dedicated to the families of the holy martyrs of Al-Aksa, the pure souls of our loved ones.”

In other words, students in this first-aid course for teachers of Arab and Druze youth in Israel, were given books dedicated to suicide bombers and other terrorists who have reached the status of “shahid” (holy) for killing Israelis in the name of Islam.

Al-Aksa is the name of a mosque on the Temple Mount. The Oslo War, which that broke out in September 2000, shortly after Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount as an opposition MK, was called the Al-Aksa intifada by the Arabs. The Al-Aksa Brigades is a terror group responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis during the course of the Oslo War.

One Druze teacher, taking the course was shocked and outraged by the book. “I was shocked to receive this kind of book in a course sponsored by the Education Ministry,” said the man whose son was killed while serving in the IDF. “I don’t understand how the Ministry of Education would allow this to happen.”

The teacher says that the ministry asked him not to take up the issue of the book with the media, but when they did nothing with his complaint, he decided to report it.

The Education Ministry responded to a report in Yediyot Aharonot, an Israeli newspaper, saying that the book was printed by an external company and was not submitted to the ministry for approval.

From Bill: notice though, that the book was still distributed by the Education Ministry. So how is it possible that they handed it out without first approving it? it is a facinating question that probablt will never be answered.